COMMAntary

The newsletter of the Minnesota Conference UCC

Volume 24, No. 11 | May 28, 2026

Equipping a courageous Church alive with Christ's transforming love

Peace UCC: Working in Partnership to Support Immigrant Families

When immigrants in Duluth became targets of the ICE surge this past winter, Peace UCC applied for an emergency grant from the Minnesota Conference to help the people forced to stay home from work and school.

Peace leveraged its grant by working in partnership with several organizations, says Rev. Charlotte Frantz, who helps lead the church’s immigration work. Peace is a Sanctuary Congregation, a designation that its building is a place where immigrants in immediate danger of deportation can take refuge while their immigration status is resolved.

Frantz said that during Advent season Peace hosted adult forums on immigration efforts in Duluth, including a session with the principal of a nearby Myer-Wilkins Elementary School, which serves a significant number of Latinx families. After learning that the school had its own food shelf, Peace became a collection site for that program. With the support of the emergency grant, the church was also able to make a cash gift.

Peace also contributed to the local YWCA’s New Neighbors program, a mutual aid fund to help with utilities and rent as well as to bring two immigration attorneys to Duluth. In addition, the emergency grant supported the church’s sanctuary fund for asylum seekers and refugees and allowed Peace to supplement donations to the Food Bank and expand the pool of volunteers in partnership with the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth, Temple Israel, and United Protestant Church.

“Our work has had much greater impact because we worked in partnership,” says Frantz. “We are grateful for the relationships we formed before and during the surge and grateful for the emergency funds made possible through the Conference.”

View the full report with photos of Peace UCC's emergency grant work.

Conference News & Events

Vocational Support for Authorized Ministers

by Rev. Bonnie Forsman, Covenant Subcommittee Chairperson

I love a good conversation. I particularly love when a conversation pulls together the various threads of life and weaves them into patterns of meaning that create integration from previously unintegrated experiences. It is why I love the work of clinical pastoral education, spiritual direction, and pastoral care conversations. It is what I love about facilitating Vocational Support Conversations (VSCs) for the Committee on Ministry’s covenant subcommittee for the Minnesota Conference.

VSCs are part of the standing requirements for ordained clergy in the United Church of Christ. These supportive, reflective conversations are meant to take place ideally every three to five years. They give clergy, chaplains, and those serving in authorized ministries the opportunity for intentional reflection on their experiences in ministry over a broad period of time. They afford the luxurious opportunity to listen to one’s own life in the presence of an honoring witness and conversation partner.

Throughout the year the Covenant team calls and emails authorized ministers to set up these one-hour conversations. They can take place in person at a coffee shop or over Zoom. Additionally, this year we are trying something new. During annual meeting you will have an opportunity to fill out your Annual Information Review forms at the Conference table and sign up for a VSC conversation.

We look forward to hearing where your ministry has taken you over the years.

The Damascus Project Introduces New Offerings

The Damascus Project Regional Theological Education Program of the Minnesota and Wisconsin Conferences UCC offers an enriching line up of online learning opportunities for lay learners, lay leaders, members in discernment, and clergy pursuing continuing education or fulfilling ministerial standing requirements.

We are particularly excited about a new course in our Bible area: Strangers Within your Gates: Cultivating Holy Hospitality for Immigrants looks through the lens of the Hebrew Bible to considers what it means to welcome the stranger in a world that builds walls and deports.

Our Lilly Endowment Thriving Congregations grant is underwriting two helpful courses for lay leaders and clergy: Healthy Conflict and Communication and Human Resources Basics for UCC Churches.

Explore all upcoming courses and trainings.

Check Out Updates to the Annual Meeting

June 12-13 | College of St. Benedict

Friday and Saturday registration opens at 8 am.

Friday plenary begins at 10 am. Saturday plenary begins at 9 am.

LEARN MORE

We are continually updating the website with the latest for the Annual Meeting so please check back frequently. We invite you to join us in person or via Zoom as we explore "Into the Deep" – defying division and celebrating our strength, unity, and resolve as Minnesotans and children of God.

Pride Season is Upon Us!

Pride season is upon us and we at the Conference Office want to know where and when our churches will be involved. Let us know!

Celebrate Pride in your community! If your church is tabling at Pride this year let us know - take pictures and send them. See the full list.

Pilgrim Point Legacy Fund Micro-Grants Available for 2026

Got an idea for outdoor ministry? Let's talk!

The Minnesota Conference UCC has set aside $20,000 from the Pilgrim Point Legacy Fund to support congregations and ministry settings trying something new in outdoor ministry in 2026. These are micro‑grants: small (up to $1,000), accessible, and meant to help good ideas and community projects get off the ground.

We are defining outdoor ministry broadly. A creation‑care project. A walking pilgrimage. A neighborhood prayer garden. A river paddle with another congregation. A wild church gathering. Intergenerational time outside. Or something we haven’t thought of yet but you have!

We're especially interested in projects that bring people together: with other UCC congregations, with community organizations or nonprofits, with neighbors. Rural and Greater Minnesota ideas are warmly welcomed, small and large.

If you’re a pastor, lay leader, chaplain, justice minister, green team, or just someone with a vision for your congregation or community, this is for you. You don’t need a polished proposal to start. You just need an idea, or even the seed of one.

David Coleman, the Conference's Minister of Outdoor Ministry, would love to have a conversation with you about what is possible. Contact him at davidc@uccmn.org.

New Freshwater Faithworks Summer Program Explores the Intersection of Water and Faith

Freshwater Faithworks is a new summer program focusing on the intersection of freshwater ecology and faith. Two experiences are offered. Both will provide a combination of hands-on service-learning, education, exploration, and reflection to help participants experience freshwater sources in a wholistic way, inviting them to fall in love with water and empowering them to fight back against climate anxiety with tangible action. Freshwater Faithworks is a collaboration between the Minnesota and Wisconsin Conferences of the United Church of Christ.

A three-night intergenerational camp (June 28-July 1) will explore the importance and sanctity of our water sources and how human activity affects the health of our waterways for better or worse. Held at Daycholah Center in Ripon, WI. Learn more.

A four-night middle school adventure will explore the importance and sanctity of our water sources and how human activity affects the health of our waterways for better or worse. Held at Creekside UCC in Minneapolis and First United Church of Little Falls. Learn more and register.

"The Doctrine" Documentary Screens June 17 at Riverview Theater

Doors 6:30 pm | Screening 7 pm | Q&A to follow | Tickets available at door and in advance

The Doctrine explores the legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery on driving violence against Indigenous Peoples, land, and water in the Americas and around the world. The central narrative follows a group of Indigenous youth from the Twin Cities who travel to the Vatican to confront the Catholic Church about the Doctrine and its legacy. The film exposes how the Doctrine has targeted communities of color around the world for centuries, and still today enables corporate forces driving the climate crisis.

Watch the trailer.

Learn more.

News from Partners

Faith in U.S. National Clergy Call Invitation

We are called for such a time as this. We are called to love our neighbors, to stand up for them, to stand up and speak up for our rights together. We are living in a moment where free and fair elections, and our democracy itself, are under an unprecedented threat. Loving our neighbors now means protecting our democracy together.

Clergy across faiths are uniquely positioned to be truth tellers and moral leaders in the face of interference in the midterm elections by the federal government. We are taking the lessons learned from Minnesota during the faith resistance to Operation Metro Surge and sharing those lessons, tools, and a shared path of action with clergy across the country.

We invite you to join the launch of Faith in Us: A National Clergy Initiative, with national clergy calls Tuesday, June 9, from 2:00–4:00 pm CT and Thursday, June 11, from 10:30 am - 12:30 pm CT. These calls are for clergy and faith leaders across faith tradition and across the country.

At these calls, organizational leaders at the center of democracy protection work nationwide will give you a clear-eyed political analysis of what we need to do to defend our elections. The architects of Minnesota’s Faith Leader Resistance to Operation Metro Surge will also invite you into a shared path of clergy action based on what worked in Minnesota and what can work across the country to protect our elections and our election results.

We have seen the power clergy and faith leaders have to turn our country in a hopeful and healing direction. We need you, and we need to stand together - for such a time as this.

ConNext Summit 2026:
Beyond Belonging - Branching Out - Bringing In - Building Together

October 11-13, Clearwater Forest Camp and Retreat Center

Faith leaders strive to create places of deep belonging. We long to branch out beyond belonging to bring into the center children, youth, and adults forced to the margins so that together, we can build a more beautiful community in which all God's beloveds flourish. How can we develop more emotionally- and systemically-aware mentors – adults and peers –capable of more joyful and meaningful welcome for children and youth whose identities place them on the margins and increasingly in danger? In the face of Christian Nationalism and other radicalizing ideologies, how do we create communities in which vulnerability, compassion, and gracious conversation are norms that shape open, compassionate, gracious children, youth, and families?

Joys & Concerns

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Conference staff member See Hernandez who recently earned her master of arts in the infant and early childhood mental health program from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

The Conference is so proud of you, See!

Employment Opportunities

The Conference maintains an up-to-date listing of authorized minister, interim minister, and other positions available in Minnesota, as well as positions with the UCC National setting. This site is frequently updated. See the current listings.

More Resources & Opportunities

STORY IDEAS: Have a story or idea to share in COMMAntary? Send an email to communications@uccmn.org. COMMAntary is published every other Thursday. Submissions are due Tuesday prior to publication at noon.

PROGRAMS & SUPPORT: Check out the wealth of resources available on the Conference's website for authorized ministers, local churches, and faith formation leaders.

EMPLOYMENT: Check out the employment opportunities page on the Conference's website for all open positions.